What the American dream means to me 🇺🇸

Hi there,

I've been thinking about what Memorial Day means to me this year.

My parents came to this country with almost nothing. Two suitcases, a dream, and the kind of quiet courage that doesn't get named or celebrated. They built a life here from scratch, not because it was easy, but because America promised something they couldn't find anywhere else. The freedom to try. The freedom to become.

I was born here. I grew up here. I am American, fully, completely, and I also grew up in a home where that freedom felt both enormous and carefully managed. There was a path. A right answer. A blueprint that kept you safe. For a long time, I followed it.

It took me years to understand that the greatest gift my parents gave me, the real American dream they crossed an ocean for, wasn't the blueprint. It was the freedom to write my own.

That's what I think about on Memorial Day. The people who gave everything so that we could have that freedom. And the quiet, daily courage it takes to actually use it.

Because here's what I've noticed after building Silk + Sonder and talking to hundreds of thousands of women: so many of us are technically free and emotionally imprisoned. We have every option, every opportunity and we spend most of our lives running on empty, showing up for everyone else, quietly wondering when it's our turn.

We don't have a freedom problem. We have a permission problem.

With Mental Health Awareness Month closing and the second half of 2026 already here, I wanted to share a few questions worth sitting with this weekend:

• What did the first half of 2026 cost me and was it worth it?

• What does freedom actually feel like in my body, and when did I last feel it? 

• Who am I becoming, and is she someone I'm proud of?

• What is one thing I keep putting off that my future self is begging me to start?

• If I could design the next six months on my own terms, what would change first?

Those questions are the beginning. Silk + Sonder is the daily structure that helps you live the answers, five minutes a day, a new journal every month, a practice built on real science that helps you get clear on who you are and what you actually want. 

In honor of the holiday, I want to make it easy to invest in yourself. Get 20% off sitewide with code MEMORIAL20 here.

This is your second half. Use it.

With so much love,

As seen in - Business Insider | CBS | Forbes | Huffington Post